Idyll
by Pistachios
Summary: On the eve of Christmas, Anna wishes for a friend who could understand and love her for who she was - an awkward social outcast. On the eve of Christmas, one of Santa's seven elven gift deliverers gets discovered by a young girl. ELSANNA
1. Once upon a dream

ONE

Behind the snow-frosted window of a shabby cottage stood a brooding young girl with hair as bright as an orange. Unlike many other cottages that were around, this particular shabby cottage was not wondrously decorated with colourful dangling lights. The only object that seemed welcoming was an old and ridden doormat placed outside the front door which beared the letters, 'Wlcom'. Unbeknownst to the young girl, the 'E's were actually eaten by their neighbour's seemingly unfriendly black hound named Custard.

'More like Custard the Bastard, if you asked me,' the young girl's mother would always say with disdain and her eyebrows would furrow as if something foul had magically made its way into her flaccid nostrils.

The brooding young girl was known as Anna and just like any eight year old would, Anna had many questions regarding anything and everything. She had a mind that was filled with curious thoughts and bright imagination.

However, her curiosity was never sated as her questions were always answered very obviously but also, vaguely.

'Mommy, will Daddy come home for Christmas this year?' Anna asked, her voice as innocent as a newly laid egg. She continued to sit by the window, her green eyes shifted and swayed about to take in the beautiful scenery right in front of her. Everything glistened, from the gnarled and twisted trees that were carrying the weight of snow on their branches to her mother's - soon to be buried - musty-looking car.

Anna's mother bit her chapped bottom lip as she placed the newspaper she was reading onto the coffee table. She shot a glance at the young girl, contemplating between two heavy options - to tell a lie or the burdening truth.

After what seemed to be a few minutes, Anna's mother finally replied with a huff, 'I don't know, honey. Maybe next year?'

Anna's mother muttered a curse to herself. She could only give an answer that was drawn between the thin line of truth and falsehood. Anna was still too young to know the bitter truth - the fact that her father was a lying, cheating asshole who ruined their lives.

'That's what you've been saying for the past five years,' the young girl murmured softly, obviously disappointed she was not going to meet the father she never knew once again.

Anna's mother felt her heart ached. The look Anna had plastered on her face every winter was a look a child shouldn't be wearing at all. Anna was supposed to be smiling, not grumbling like an old Scrooge.

'Anna, why don't you-'

The phone rang.

Anna's mother sighed and rushed to pick up the telephone.

Anna watched as her mother mumbled over the telephone. Her eyes trying their best to read her mother's lips. However, she no longer needed to when her mother rushed to the storeroom to get her big winter coat that reminded the young girl of the abominable snowman.

'Mommy, where are you going?' Anna asked. She almost sounded like she was pleading for her mother to stay.

Anna's mother stared at Anna for a short moment, as if forgetting she was even there in the first place.

'Your uncle is having trouble with his car engine and he needs my help. I'll try to be back as soon as I can, okay?'

Anna forced the corners of her lips to curl upwards slightly, forming a tight smile, and nodded. She felt her heart sink as she watched her mother leave the cottage. It was not the first time the young girl's mother had left her home alone but it continued to hurt Anna every time she did so. It only reminded Anna of how lonely she was.

Despite living in a rather friendly neighbourhood, Anna had difficulties socialising with her neighbours. Her neighbours, however, never stopped trying to befriend the young girl. Especially that blonde kid Anna admired a lot, Kristoff.

Kristoff was everything Anna was not. Friendly, outgoing and cheerful. Needless to say, Anna found Kristoff very intriguing and frustrating. She never understood why Kristoff would never stop pestering her despite her rejections to play with him but she greatly appreciated his efforts to include her in his little playgroup.

Although, as much as Anna had admired the blonde kid for a few of his personality traits, she disliked him for disregarding her feelings and emotions.

Whenever Anna rejected his offer to play with him, Kristoff would call her a few names such as scaredy cat, booger brain and worst of all, poopy head. Needless to say, Anna was not exactly very pleased with Kristoff's wide vocabulary of name calling.

Anna despised herself as well for not being able to converse with people (besides her mother) well. _Sheesh, _she even found it an enormous task to greet her neighbours whenever they came over for dinner.

Anna huffed angrily as she plopped heavily onto her bed.

If only, she wished, if only she had those traits Kristoff had.

If only, she prayed, if only she could be just as easygoing as Kristoff was and befriend the kids in her neighbourhood.

If only, she hoped, if only she could break free of the shell she was in.

The young girl closed her eyes tight shut as she attempted to force herself to sleep until her mother came back.

_If only, she dreamt, if only she could make friends with someone who, unlike Kristoff, actually understood and cared for her._

Anna did not know what to expect when she awoke after hearing the sudden echo of a rather feminine sounding yelp, followed by a loud thud in the living room. She rubbed her eyes blearily before dragging her feet out of her room.

'Mommy?' Anna called out as she squinted her eyes. The living room was too dark for Anna to see anything but she could certainly hear someone wincing in pain.

'Ow, I hope that's the last time I ever fall into a chimney on my butt. Oh, well, at least it beats getting stuck in one.'

Anna widened her eyes in shock. That was not her mother's voice at all. Almost immediately, the young girl hurried to switch the lights in the living room on. As soon as they were switched on, Anna gasped and stared wide eyed at the oddly dressed person in front of her.

'Um,' the blonde, clad in a red and green outfit with a belt clasped around her body, stuttered. She uncomfortably adjusted her equally red and green hat and greeted the young girl. 'Hello.'

Anna's legs were rooted to the ground. What was she to do now with this trespasser in her house? She closed her eyes to remember what her mother had warned her.

_Never allow strangers in the house, Anna._

Anna bit her tongue. Her mother had never told her what to do when a stranger already made it inside the house. The young girl felt fear coursing through her body as she stood in front of the odd looking person.

'Wh-What are you doing here?' Anna stammered as she peeked open one of her eyes. She had never been so afraid being in front of someone she was unfamiliar with.

'What do you mean what am I doing here?' the blonde answered back as she scratched the back of her head, obviously confused at the young girl's question.

'Are you here to h- hurt me?'

'Hur- Hurt you? By Santa's peppermint cane, no! I- I'm here to deliver a present for a girl called Anna here?'

The mention of her name caused Anna to fully open both of her eyes. Her heart pounded furiously against her chest.

'For me?'

The blonde raised a brow at the young girl.

'Your name's Anna?'

Anna nodded timidly.

'Oh, um, here you go. It's a gift from Santa Claus because you were nice this year.'

'Santa Claus?' the young girl gaped. Her mother had told her stories about the jolly, fat old man who lived at the north pole and made gifts for children who were nice every year. However, as Anna had never received a present for the past few years, she learnt it the hard way that Santa Claus simply did not exist. Today was an exception. Santa Claus had sent one of his helpers to deliver a present for her! One of his- _wait._

'You're an- You're one of Santa's helpers! You're an elf!' Anna shrieked excitedly as her eyes shifted to either sides of the blonde's head and unmistakeably, the blonde's ears were sharp and pointed - exactly like what her mother had told her in the stories.

The blonde let out a nervous laugh and pulled the hat down her head to cover the pointy little ears. She had broken one of Santa's important rules - to never allow a human to realise the existence of an elf or anything and anyone related to him.

'No, I am not.'

Anna frowned and crossed her arms beneath her chest. She knew exactly what an elf would look like based on what her mother had told her.

Rather tall, skinny and they had pointed ears. The description matching exactly like the one in front of her.

'You are!'

'No, I'm not. Now, take your present and go back to sleep. Pretend none of this has ever happened when you wake up in the morning,' the blonde stated as she pushed a wrapped gift into the young girl's hands. She then turned away from Anna and towards the fireplace where she got through.

'Wait! Please stay with me,' Anna begged as she fidgeted with the wrapped gift in her hands.

'I have nobody around to spend Christmas with,' the young girl continued. Her crystalline green eyes began to tear up.

The elf quirked an eyebrow and sighed. She had not wanted to give in to the young girl (she wasn't even supposed to) and she blamed it on her heart filled with goodness.

The elf stretched out one of her thin arms and grinned as she introduced herself, 'Greetings, my name is Elsa of the North Pole, one of Santa's seven gift deliverers.'


	2. Next Christmas

TWO

After five minutes of attempting to pronounce Elsa's name correctly, the young girl, Anna concluded that the elf's name was simply too difficult to be spoken out loud. On the contrary though, Elsa's name was not the only name Anna found odd. There was also Kristoff who blatantly insisted his name was not Christopher.

'Elsa,' the young girl said, letting the name roll on her tongue like a ball of hard candy.

'Could you come closer to me for a minute?' Anna asked as she tip-toed to place her wrapped gift (given by Santa Claus) atop the fireplace. Elsa obliged and crouched down beside the young girl. The elf flinched when Anna reached out her hands. She had never been in contact with humans before and though she was very much curious, Elsa could not help but be as cautious as a snow leopard around an unarmed little girl. Oh, how ridiculous that sounded in Elsa's head.

Noticing the elf's abrupt movement, Anna gave a reassuring smile and said, 'Don't worry, Elsa! I'm not going to hurt you.'

Elsa nodded her head with uncertainty. She watched as the young girl's tiny hands moved closer to touch her face. Elsa's eyes widened when they made contact with her own skin. Unlike Elsa's frigid skin, Anna's hands were full of warmth, something she did not expect from a human's touch. What surprised her even more was when Anna began to squeeze, pull and press the elf's face with her little hands, almost as if she was kneading dough.

'Your face feels very cold and kind of hard! Not as cold as an ice cube, but it sure is as hard as one,' Anna exclaimed and giggled in excitement. 'I never thought an elf would look like me. You have a nose and I have a nose. You have these blue pair of eyes and I do too! Except mine are green.

Elsa gazed questioningly at the young girl's face. Unlike Elsa's, Anna's face had these specks of dots on her nose and cheeks and- Well, all over her face actually, just like constellations of the stars in the night sky. What piqued the elf's interest though was the colour of the young girl's hair. Never in her entire life have she seen orange hair as fiery as Anna's. She have, however, seen one of the many hundreds of elven toy makers (Sebastian, Elsa recalled) shrieking in fear as his reddish brown hair got burnt into flames by accident. What a sight.

'Wow, your braid is really nice,' Anna complimented with a heavy sigh. Her hands no longer touching the elf's face.

'I wish I had long hair like yours. All I've got right now are these two ponytails,' she continued with a sulk.

Elsa could not help the smile that crept up to her face. She placed a hand onto the young girl's shoulder and replied, 'Don't be upset. Your hair will eventually grow longer and maybe then you can have two braids instead of one.'

'You mean pig tails?' Anna questioned.

'Pig.. Tails?' the elf snickered. Why would anybody name something after the part sticking out at the rear of animals? 'You humans sure have a funny way of naming the way you tie your hair.'

Anna, despite not understanding what the elf found so amusing, laughed along. Within seconds, the entire cottage was silent once again. The only sound echoing through the living room was the ticking and tocking of an enormous old grandfather clock which Anna loved dearly.

'That reminds me!' Anna chirped, dragging her legs to the kitchen. Elsa quirked an eyebrow when she heard the sound of clattering glasses. Not before long, Anna came out of the kitchen with a glass of milk in one hand and what looked to be a mountain of chocolates on a plate in the other. She then placed them in front of the elf and crossed her legs to sit.

'Mommy doesn't like it when I leave cookies and milk out for Santa during Christmas. She said nobody was going to be eating them and it would be a waste so we stopped baking cookies,' the young girl explained. 'The closest snack I had to cookies were chocolates.'

Elsa grinned (the biggest grin Anna had ever seen so far) and grabbed a handful of chocolates before stuffing them into her mouth. The elf remarked incoherently in delight and continued to stuff more chocolates into her mouth than she could chew or swallow.

Anna giggled.

* * *

Elsa was familiar with the term 'building'. She was very experienced with the term actually. For many years, she had been in the toy makers department, making and building wooden toy soldiers, nutcrackers, toy trains and even those small moving rectangular block with wheels (a car, was it?) that adult humans were using to travel. Why not simply use a reindeer like Santa did?

When Anna announced that they were going to build a snowman however, Elsa was taken aback. She had no clue what a snowman was but according to Anna, they were "three extremely big and round snowballs of different sizes placed on top of the other."

Elsa did not want to partake in such an activity at first (she hated doing things which she was unsure of) but Anna would not allow the elf to sit by and do nothing.

'Come on, Elsa! It'll be fun,' the young girl coaxed and eventually, the elf gave in and helped in building a snowman.

Their first attempt at building one was laughable. The head of the snowman was far too small to place a carrot as a nose. The upper body of the snowman was also bigger than the base. Their second attempt was decent but Anna wanted to build an even better one and thus what Anna wanted, Elsa complied.

While they were both packing and moulding their snowballs into big round spheres, Anna recalled something. 'Elsa, you said you were one of Santa's seven gift deliverers.'

'Yeah, why?'

'Why doesn't Santa deliver his own gifts? Where are the other gifts you're supposed to be delivering? Where are your reindeers? How did you travel from the North Pole?' Anna asked breathlessly as she rolled her snowball along the snowy patch to make it bigger.

Elsa stopped moulding her snowball momentarily to register the questions Anna had bombarded her with.

'Oh, Rudolph's red nose, you sure ask a lot of questions. Let's see uh,' the elf scratched her head.

'Santa's a very busy man and he can't possibly deliver all the gifts to every single children in the world alone. The other gifts that I carried on my way here are in a red bag and it's right there, beside your chimney!' Elsa answered and pointed towards the shabby cottage's chimney where her red bag of gifts was placed. Anna's eyes followed the direction Elsa's finger was pointed to. The red bag of gifts was even bigger than the trash bags her mother always told her to clear every Friday. The young girl wondered exactly how many wrapped boxes were inside that enormous bag.

'I don't have a reindeer. I mean, I don't need one because I can fly,' Elsa commented matter-of-factly, as if flying was normal. Anna looked up from her ball of snow with her jaw dropped.

'You flew here? You can fly?' the young girl exclaimed and covered her mouth with her gloved hands when she noticed how late the night was. She did not want to wake her neighbours up just like how Custard, the neighbour's dog, would with his barking.

Elsa nodded her head with a triumphant smile. With a snap of her fingers, the elf's feet was lifted off the ground and there she was, flying.

'That is so amazing!' Anna squealed animatedly, her hands clapping profusely. 'You're like Superman but so much cooler!'

Why was she being compared to a toy figurine who wore its red underwear outside its pants? Nevertheless, Elsa accepted the strange compliment. The elf continued to twirl and swirl in the air effortlessly while the young girl gaped in admiration and awe. Without saying a word, Elsa flew towards Anna to grab her tiny hands and lift her off the snow as well.

Anna shrieked when her feet was not touching the snow anymore. She grabbed Elsa's hands as tightly as she could, frightened that she might drop to the ground anytime she lost her balance or her grip on the elf. The young girl's breath also quickened as the both of them were lifted higher and higher, away from the snowy patches below.

'I-I'm flying! I'm flying!' Anna screamed, her legs wiggling in midair. Feeling confident of herself, Elsa removed one of her hands from Anna's.

The young girl screamed again at the loss of her hold but all the elf did was ask, 'Do you trust me?'

Anna gulped before squeaking out a weak 'yes'. Elsa gave a confident smirk and grabbed the young girl's hand tightly. 'Don't let go or you might fall and die!' the elf said what she thought seemed reassuring enough.

In a split second, both the elf and the young girl dived straight down towards the patches of snow. Anna could feel her heart in her throat. Her mouth opened wider and wider the closer she got to the ground. She squeezed her eyes shut, praying that they would not "fall and die" as Elsa had mentioned. Deep inside, the young girl regretted trusting the elf whom she had met in less than three hours with her life.

'Anna?' Elsa called out to the young girl who still had her eyes closed.

'Are we dead yet?' Anna peeked and was somewhat surprised to see that she had not died _yet._

Elsa chuckled and flew alongside Anna towards the roof of the shabby cottage.

'No, you little imp, we merely glided across the snow,' the elf replied, settling herself down onto the roof. She let go of Anna's hand and sat with her legs crossed. Anna heaved a sigh of relief before sitting on the edge of the roof beside Elsa.

'I'm not little!' Anna pouted. So what if she was only eight years old? That _so _did not mean that she was little.

'My apologies. I could've sworn you were at least five times smaller in size as compared to me,' the elf teased and received a light punch on the shoulder by the young girl who felt slightly offended.

'At least I'm not as old as you!'

'How would you know I'm not actually as young as you are?' Elsa retorted with her eyes squinted at the young girl.

'You're so much bigger than me, Elsa,' Anna answered as she rolled her eyes, as if that was the most obvious observation on Earth. 'You could be, I don't know, twenty or something, just like cousin Jane.'

Elsa burst into a fit of laughter (the loudest laughter Anna had ever heard). Anna did not understand what the elf found very humorous. Had she said something wrong? Was cousin Jane a lot older than Anna had thought? She could be, Anna pondered. Cousin Jane _have _been dating that primitive looking ape-man. She would not be surprised if cousin Jane and that ape-man announced one day that they both actually came from a million years ago.

'Please forgive me,' Elsa uttered in between chokes of laughter. 'I don't think you know how _old _I actually am. Unlike your cousin Jane, I'm actually two hundred and thirty seven years old.'

The young girl held out her hand and counted the elf's age with her fingers. After what seemed like a minute, Anna exclaimed in shock, 'That's like a really big number!'

'It sure is. I've spent almost half of my entire life working at Santa's workshop, building toys for children. Sometimes Santa would assign me to take care of the reindeers as well. Delivering gifts to children, however, is an entirely new experience for me. I've never had the chance to visit the world outside of the North Pole before. The outside world feels really bizzare. I have to admit though, I'm glad I've met you today, Anna,' the elf confessed bashfully, her fingers playing with the hem of her buttoned shirt.

'I really am. Thank you, Anna. Today's been a really great day or night, rather,' Elsa continued with her head raised to face the night sky.

Anna was clueless. She did not know how to respond to such an honest remark. Nobody had ever told her that they were happy to have met her before. Nobody had ever mentioned that they enjoyed her company before. With no words to say, the young girl blushed, gratified to know that there was indeed someone who liked being around her despite her persistent questions and eccentricities (at times).

They continued to stare at the night sky for a few minutes until Elsa stood up and grabbed her enormous red bag of gifts behind her. Anna stood up as well and grabbed the elf's hand that reached out for hers. With another snap of Elsa's fingers, they both floated off the ground.

'I wish I could stay, Anna but I have many gifts to deliver before the clock strikes twelve,' the elf said as the young girl and her landed onto the soft pile of snow. She was reluctant to leave Anna alone by herself but duty called and it was her duty to ensure that every single good kid in the world received their specially made gift by Santa.

'You'll come back right?' Anna asked in a voice that was not as cheery as before.

'Sure, I will. You'll see me next Christmas.'

'You promise?'

Anna held her pinky out and Elsa entwined it with her own.

'Next Christmas.'

* * *

**A/N: **First of all, I'd like to thank everybody who gave this story a chance and clicked to read it. Also, to the people who have reviewed, followed and favourited this story, thank you so very much. As this is my first fan fiction, I'll do my best not to disappoint you guys! :)

It'd also be great to receive a little constructive feedback from you all because I'm here to learn and improve. :D


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